The name of Sabians is often given by the IMoham- medans and Eastern Christians to a sect in and about Bagdad and Bassorah, whose proper appellation is Men- daites, or "Disciples of John:" sometimes improperly called " Christians of St. John," as they have in realitj' no pretensions to Christianity. The name of their found- er is John, but it is not quite clear that he is John the Baptist, as has been supposed by their using a kind of baptism. Their sacred books are a ritual, the book of John, and the book of Adam; the latter has been pub- lished, and is extremely mystical and obscure. It sets out with the Gnostic tenet of two eternal, self-existent, independent principles. It teaches that Jesus is one of the seven planets — viz. Mercury; that he was baptized in Jordan by John, but corrupted the doctrines of John, wherefore the good genius Anush delivered him up to be crucified. These Sabians pray at the seventh hour and at sunset; assemble at the place of worship on the first da}- of the week, on which day they baptize their children ; they use extreme unction, decry celibacy, for- bid the worship of images, permit all kinds of meat, but abstain from meat dressed by infidels; sign their chil- dren with a particular sign, and contemn all reverence
SABIN"
204
SABOTIERS
for the planets. The Rev. Joseph Wolf mentions in his Journal having met with some of these Sabians, or ra- ther Mendaites, about Bassorah; but they evidently wished to impose on him and give a favorable impres- sion of their doctrines. Thej' atFected a great reverence for Christ, as the Messiah, and the Word of God; they professed to require the mediation of Christ and John, and to believe that Christians woukl be saved, and to expect the second advent, and taught that sin was washed awa_v by rebaptizing. Their remaining tenets, such as sealing their children, abstaining from meats cooked by Mohammedans, etc., are the same as have been before quoted. See Mend^ans.
Sabin (or Sabine), Elijah Robinson, an early American Methodist minister, was descended from an old Puritan family, and was born in Tolland, Conn., Sept. 10, 1776. Although he never went to school after he was eight years of age, he acquired a tolerable educa- tion by night study on his fiither's farm. He was early converted under Calvinistic inlluence, but soon joined the Methodists, and began to preach in Vermont in 1798. The next year he was received into what was then the New York Conference, and sent to Needham, Mass. His labors on the Landaff Circuit, in New Hampshire, which was his next appointment, were so severe as to impair his health, and he retired as supernumerary for two years, during which he married. He resumed his min- istry in 1805 as presiding elder of the Vermont district, and afterwards presiding elder on the New London dis- trict, enduring many hardships and persecutions in the work. He next served on the Needham Circuit, and finally in Boston. In 1811, his health failing, he located and afterwards removed to Penobscot, where he endured the horrors of the ensuing war, being in 1814 temporari- ly compelled to escape to Landaff. In 1817 he visited the South, and died at Augusta, Ga., May 4, 1818. He was a man of tine figure and commanding address, and at one time was chaplain of the House of Represen- tatives of Massachusetts. He published several small works: The Road to Happiness: — Charles Observator : —several occasional Sermons and Tracts: — and began the collection of materials for a History- of Maine. See Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, vii, 30G sq.
Sabina, PorPvEA, first the mistress and afterwards the wife of Nero. Her father was T. Ollius, who per- ished at the fall of his patron Sejanus, and her maternal grandfather was Poppajus Sabinus, whose name she as- sumed. Poppaja had been originally married to Rufius Crispinus, by whom she had a son; but she afterwards became the mistress of Otho, a boon companion of Nero, by whose means she hoped to attract the notice of the emperor. Obtaining a divorce from Rutins, slie married Otho. Her husband's lavish praise of her charms made the emperor anxious to see her. Her conduct had the desired effect. Nero removed Otho out of the way by sending him to govern Lusitania, A.D. 58. Popprea now became the acknowledged mistress of Nero, but was anxious to be his wife. As long, however, as Agrippina, the mother of Nero, was alive, she could scarcely hope to obtain this honor. Through her influence Nero was induced to put his mother to deatli, in A.D. 59, and in A.D. 62 he put away Octavia, on the plea of barrenness, and married Poppaia a few days afterwards. Not feel- ing secure as long as Octavia was alive, she worked upon the fears and passions of her husband until she
Coin, with Bust of Poppeea.
prevailed upon him to put the unhappy girl to death in tlic course of tlie same year. Popptea was killed by a kick from her husband in a tit of passion (A.D. (55). Her body was not burned, according to the Roman cus- tom, but embalmed, and was deposited in the sepulchre of the Julii. She received the honor of a public fune- ral, and her funeral oration was pronounced by Nero himself. The onlj' class in the empire who regretted her may have been the Jews, whose cause she had de- fended (Josephus, Life, %o; A nt. xx, 8, 11). See Smith, Did. of Gr. and Rom. Biofj. iii, G8G.